Faith Higgins
My work consists mainly of portraits and figures, usually self portraiture. My reference photographs are almost always taken, planned, and curated by me. My medium of choice is oil paint on wood panels. They range anywhere between 10”x10” panels to 48”x 60”, the bigger the piece the more opportunity to add in hidden content. I tend to utilize oil ground as my base, this allows for luscious brushwork and layering. The paintings I create almost always have a theme or reference a specific time period, generally they are the most reminiscent of the 1950s-1980s. The main points I am trying to communicate with my paintings are my own personal philosophies that seem to align with a lot of feminist culture, like sex positivity, body positivity and working against the idea of modesty culture. I do this by taking images that were once used to objectify and sexualize women, and flipping the meaning, turning it into a consensual experience. This happens by making most of my work self portraiture. My work is an archive of my experiences as a woman navigating society, so self portraiture for me is the obvious choice. I have also closely followed the Feminist Art Movement which paved the way for artists like myself to have a platform and voice.